There's nothing special about this video trailer for the new Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice, except that it's narrated by the author himself, one of the world's most famously reclusive writers. The Wall Street Journal took the clip to a voice expert, who said he was pretty certain it was Pynchon after comparing the vocal timbre and delivery to Pynchon's voice as captured during his two guest appearances on The Simpsons in 2004 (his first and, until now, his only public appearances of any kind in 40 years). Faced with the WSJ's findings, a reluctant Penguin Press has admitted it is, in fact, Pynchon doing the trailer's narration. The news caps a busy week for Pynchon fans. The novel (the author's seventh) came out last Tuesday. And this week, coincidentally, it was revealed that a short New Yorker piece about Pynchon from 1996, which suggested that he once palled around with a rock band called Lotion, was a hoax. Via AgencySpy.

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There's nothing special about this video trailer for the new Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice, except that it's narrated by the author himself, one of the world's most famously reclusive writers. The Wall Street Journal took the clip to a voice expert, who said he was pretty certain it was Pynchon after comparing the vocal timbre and delivery to Pynchon's voice as captured during his two guest appearances on The Simpsons in 2004 (his first and, until now, his only public appearances of any kind in 40 years). Faced with the WSJ's findings, a reluctant Penguin Press has admitted it is, in fact, Pynchon doing the trailer's narration. The news caps a busy week for Pynchon fans. The novel (the author's seventh) came out last Tuesday. And this week, coincidentally, it was revealed that a short New Yorker piece about Pynchon from 1996, which suggested that he once palled around with a rock band called Lotion, was a hoax. Via AgencySpy.